After travelling for several weeks in a row for work, some more bad weather and both of us coming down with a real bad flu, we finally started to make some progress on the Art Shack.

We got the rest of the OSB up on the walls.

That helped stiffen the structure a lot.  Then we got all of the OSB covered with Tyvek.

My taping job on the Tyvek is not the best.  Actually, it looks like it was done by a mentally retarded 3 year-old.  But, it is good enough to keep the weather out.  With spring well underway in the desert, the sun and rain was starting to play hell with the first few sheets of OSB we had put up.  So at least the Tyvek will provide a modicum of protection from the weather.

The photos posted here were actually taken a week ago.  I did not write the blog entry at the time because I was down hard with the flu and had all I could do to get up and go to work each day.  While I was on the road, Tina got the porch stained.  It came out really nice.  I will post photos of that in my next installment.

Next week I have scheduled a week off from work and hopefully the weather will cooperate enough that I can get the ladders built for the roof gables and get the roof decking on.  The roof trusses were pretty straight when we set them, but the recent sun and rain has warped a few of them pretty badly.  So I am going to have to take a day and straighten the rafters before I can put the roof decking up.  Unfortunately, that is just part of the bargain when you cannot spend many days in a row working on a project to protect it from the weather.  But once I get the roof decking on and get it protected from the weather, we should be in pretty good shape.

Hello Acre-Heads!  Sorry for not posting for the last several weeks.  Between an extremely hectic travel schedule for work, bad weather and both Tina and I getting a bad cold, my progress on the Art Shack has been woefully slow.

I did get the porch built a couple days after my last post.

Although it does not look like much, those beams were a serious pain to do.  The beams weigh about 70 pounds each and I had to balance the posts vertically and carefully set the beam on top.  Once I got everything into place and plumb and square, then I was finally able to drill and bolt everything together.  Trying to hold the post perfectly plumb with one hand while lifting the beam up with the other resulted in more than a few bruises on my arms.  But in the end, I got it done and it turned out to be stronger than I anticipated.

After I got the porch done, I had two, 5-day trips that turned into 7-day trips due to flight delays and cancellations.  One was to Toronto and the other, Montreal.  In case any of you were contemplating it, going to Canada in the middle of winter is a really dumb idea.  Regardless, that further slowed my progress on the shack.

The weekend before last, I found myself with a 3 day weekend.  So my friend and neighbor LeRoy came over and helped me set the roof trusses.

With two of us, the roof trusses actually went a lot easier than I thought it would.  Leaving the sheathing off the side walls really worked out nicely for setting the trusses.  We were able to walk them through the wall and set them on the walls upside down, then just flip them up and clamp and nail them in place.  We were able to get most of them up, set in place and partially nailed in less than 3 hours.  That was when the 90/10 Rule kicked in – 90% of the progress comes with 10% of the effort.

One of the trusses I made had a real bad warp on the cord (the bottom piece).  I decided to use that one over the front wall of the shack to allow us to pull it straight using pipe clamps before nailing.  Everything appeared to be working exactly as planned…

Until we walked around to the sides…

Obviously, that was not going to work.  So we ended up setting the rest of the trusses I had made and I would have to remake that one with a better piece for the cord later.  Fortunately, I had an extra 20 foot 2X4 left over from building the trusses.

But on a positive note, I was a little concerned with how strong the metal plates that I used to fabricate the trusses would be.  But after bending the trusses about 8 inches without even a groan from the metal plates, I am not going to worry about that anymore.

Even the ends of the trusses did not come out too bad.  I will have a little bit of clean up on them to get the facia perfectly straight.  But all in all, I am pretty happy with how well my trusses came out for me being a truss-rookie.

Remaking the bad truss also turned out to be more of a pain than I anticipated.  I reused all of the parts except the cord.  But the extra 2X4 also proved to be warped pretty bad.  Fortunately, I had a piece of 12/4 ash about 9 feet long that I was able to use to straighten the cord before nailing it.

I do not even remember why I bought the ash; probably because it was a good deal at the time.  But I have had it for years and never had a use for it until now.  Thank God I kept it!

With the final truss in place, everything is looking pretty good.

A trip to Houston and several more delayed flights later, I was able to start working on the shack again today.  It was far too windy today to try and muscle around sheets of OSB to get the rest of the walls sheathed.  So I decided to put the hurricane clips on the trusses.

With H-1 clips on the outside and H-3 clips on the inside, the manufacturer assures me the trusses should stay attached to the walls in winds up to 180 MPH.  I tend to believe them since it is the same manufacturer that made the metal plates for the trusses.

When it was too windy or wet to work on the Art Shack, I spent my time hauling several more truckloads of firewood.

I was able to get it mostly all cut and split as well.

Getting free firewood from the brush piles left by the Forest Service has been a Godsend for us this winter.  I checked our propane tank 2 weeks ago and we are still about 80% full.  Given the propane company never fills our tank beyond about 90-95%, that means we have burned about 35 gallons of propane all winter to heat our water, cook and run the furnace.  That equates to spending about $75 to heat the house, cook and have hot water for the whole winter!  I love our little wood stove!

Finally, the apple trees are starting to bloom.

And the almond tree is going nuts.

I sure hope every one of those blooms turns into an almond because I LOVE almonds!

Even the peach tree has two blooms on it.  I did not photograph it because it does still look pretty pathetic.  But Tina was right, it did not die as I had thought.

Finally, I thought I should end this post with another photo that Tina took of our Arizona skyline.  Eat your heart out New York City!  Your skyline is not nearly as impressive as ours!